The impossible problem - Keeping water (and other) vapours out of anything

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Every valve, seal, mastic and enclosure ever produced lets some water through - as water vapour has the ability to permeate through every single material. Many materials and sealants are great at keeping out liquid water but allow water (and other) vapours to pass through virtually unhindered.

Cellulose, EVOH and PVOH are examples of this.

This problem can cause equipment to jam or fail, electronics to malfunction, drugs to loose potency and food to go stale. It has even caused missiles to crash. And that's where Versaperm and its cutting-edge range of vapour permeability measurement equipment comes into play. The equipment can be used for both product development and quality control.

Versaperm has now introduced an updated range of technically advanced systems to provide faster and more precise vapour permeability measurements of not just material samples and laminates but also for finished and fully formed components and enclosures. This can be critical as many industrial manufacturing processes, such as thermoforming, can actually change vapour permeability by a factor of four.

The equipment can cater for several samples, mastics, enclosures, seals, gaskets or components at a time, often give a reading in as little as 30 minutes. It can optionally control environmental condition such as pressure and temperature and can produce results not just for water vapour but for hydrocarbons, solvents, hydrogen, oxygen, CO2, helium etc. as well.

Versaperm's control interfaces are simple and intuitive and provide results that can be recorded, output directly to pass-fail systems, QC or other software systems. Results are accurate in the PPM (Part Per Million) to PPB range.

As well as manufacturing the instruments, Versaperm offers a vapour laboratory measurement service and technical consultancy.